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I frequently comment on the theory of intelligent design, occasionally I even get a little snarky. I would like to think that, overall, I have adopted a fairly moderate, reasonable tone. However, when I read DaveScott’s recent post equating the three inviduals arrested for burning churches in Alabama to commenters at the Panda’s Thumb – a vile spewing of vomit if I ever saw one – I decided it was time to rethink my approach. I really expected better from ID proponents than that kind of debased lying. They are morally repugnant and their methods are no better. Somewhere in the Bible it Jesus is quoted as saying:

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles?”

Well, here are the fruits of Uncommon Descent:

I still fail to see why making a connection between speech that contains mockery and hatred of Christian fundamentalism, such hate-speech written by university faculty and students, is unreasonable when university students torch a dozen fundamentalist churches. This seems very reasonable to me and I stand by it

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If memory serves, the people accused of the church burning were students from a Methodist college. So much for evil atheists going on a rampage of church destruction.
It’s hardly surprising that ID defenders employ such vile epithets – when you don’t have the facts on your side, ad hominem attacks are pretty much all that’s available to you. The real hypocrisy comes when those people who compare their opponents to Nazis, Communists and criminals at the drop of a hat then wring their hands and howl about persecution whenever a real scientist is mean to them.

14 Then the LORD said to me, “The prophets are prophesying lies in my name. I have not sent them or appointed them or spoken to them. They are prophesying to you false visions, divinations, idolatries [a] and the delusions of their own minds.

This is a kind of untutored, improvisational psychomarketing. These people aren’t very good at it at that level because their gut overrides their brain temporarily, or perhaps the amygdala’s involved . . .you get the idea.
However, scientists, academics, and other vocal ID critics should expect to eventually be demonized as dishonest, anti-Christian, and anti-American. It’s possible this could get quite personal and spread to ID footsoldiers around the country if the issue continues it’s current trajectory.
It’s the logical endpoint to their strategic and tactical approach. They have no compunction about lying in many ways about science or about feeding their masses shovelfuls of false witness. As their ship begins to obviously founder, they’ll have no psychomarketing reason to maintain public composure.
It’s also not unimaginable this brush may tar scientists, academics, teachers, etc., in general, if doing so is useful for those with a broader sociopolitical agenda. Those people are good at it. Look what they did to the word “liberal”.

On a more serious note…
Something disturbing seems to be happening in this country. Scientists, engineers, and other educated folks seem to be either concentrating in various centers (the northeast, Chicago, Austin, the west coast, and a few other smaller spots) or walling themselves off in semi-gated suburbs and little liberal college towns. With them comes all the “higher” culture, money, and high-paying jobs.
Meanwhile, the rest of the country is not just de-industrializing and bleeding jobs and talent but is adopting an aggressively *anti*-science, *anti*-intellectual stance. Outside the big concentrated “centers” and gated suburbs, a highly militant and potent fundamentalism is sweeping through the masses. This is coincidental, and is possibly both a cause and a symptom, of the increasing wealth divide and the loss of decent jobs and a sense of a real future.
When there’s no sense of a real future, delusion takes it’s place. See http://www.raptureready.com/
To see where this might be going, watch any B-grade cyberpunk film in which mega-rich upper class intellectuals and business leaders live in walled off cities surrounded by hostile lands filled with poor and ignorant peasants ruled by organized crime and crazy religious cults.

Adam
Good observations but I’d like to change a little bit of it and add one.

the rest of the country is not just de-industrializing and bleeding jobs and talent but is adopting an aggressively *anti*-science, *anti*-intellectual stance.

“Adopting” is too passive a construct. Through various means this stance, or mentality, has been fostered, manipulated, cultivated over several decades for long term political goals.
It’s worked! Your description of the U.S. in your first paragraph matches the famous red-state-blue-state divide, and even more so the red-county-blue-county map of all U.S. counties. That’s right, the people who are “de-industrializing and bleeding jobs and talent” have put in power the very politicians who are, at least, accelerating those trends.
I think your last paragraph is too optimistic. You assume our future destination will really care about scientists, engineers, academics, etc. enough to let them survive as a class.
Those who’ve come to power leveraging these trends, if not creating them, have already made a deal with the devil — power through open-ended psychosocial manipulation. They probably think they know where they are taking the U.S., but they are idealouges and ultimately incapable of fully dealing with reality. Premiere example — Iraq.

Whatever one thinks about religion, it’s hard not to be impressed by the early Christian martyrs who went to the lions rather than betray their beliefs. If they were around today, I suspect even they would find it hard to resist smacking some folks upside the head for being whiny little babies with absolutely no sense of proportion.

“I really expected better from ID proponents than that kind of debased lying.”
Why does this surprise you? The IDiots and the DI have a long history of lying, ad hominem attacks and establishing false dichotomies. People that base their lives as well as their morals and ethics on a fiction and on fear are not capable of treating others with respect becasue they are anti-humanists. All the drivel that DaveScot and others of his “kind” drool has nothing to do with any real attempt to provide evidence for ID, it is all about their silly religion and hatred of those that don’t depend on the supernatural for their world view and ethics.
Drop the links if you will but plese don’t give up the fight.

I wasn’t planning on giving up the fight just changing my style…I should add that I think Skookum Planet pretty much hit the nail on the head. I think tha same tactics that purged the Republican party of moderates and liberals is now being applied to the world of science.

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